Dogecoin

DEFINITION of Dogecoin

Dogecoin is a peer-to-peer open source cryptocurrency and falls under the category of altcoins. Launched in December 2013 with a Shibu Inus (Japanese dog) as its logo, Dogecoin looked casual in its approach but is gaining wide acceptance for online transactions. It is a decentralized virtual currency and uses peer-to-peer technology to carry out its operations. Dogecoin is scrypt based (i.e. based on a password key) and enables fast payments to anyone, anywhere across the globe.

BREAKING DOWN Dogecoin

Dogecoin, which was created by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, is currently one of the fastest growing cryptocurrencies. The Dogecoin community has a slogan, ‘To the moon!’ which shows their optimism and enthusiasm towards this virtual currency.

Dogecoin is one of the many digital currencies that have been launched after the success of Bitcoin. Dogecoin presents itself broadly based on the Litecoin protocol, which differs it from Bitcoin in that it uses scrypt technology as a proof-of-work scheme. It has a block time of 60 seconds (1 minute) and the difficulty retarget time is four hours. There is no limit to how many Dogecoins can be produced i.e. the supply of coins would remain uncapped. Thus Dogecoin is an inflationary coin, while most cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) are deflationary (there’s a ceiling on the number of coins that would ever come into existence).

Dogecoin deals with large numbers of coin that are lesser in value individually, making the currency more accessible with a low entry barrier and fit for carrying out smaller transactions. With these traits, Dogecoin is becoming popular for "tipping" fellow internet-goers for sharing or creating great content.

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